


Highway to Hell

by JustRamblinOn



Category: Supernatural, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: 5 + 1 Fic, Bi Disaster Dean, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Overdose, dean and daryl are friends, gen but could be some dean/daryl slash if you squint hard enough, ghost hunting and other supernatural shit, pre-series both shows, tagged underage because they're kids when it starts, teenage daryl and dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:12:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustRamblinOn/pseuds/JustRamblinOn
Summary: Five times Dean Winchester got Daryl Dixon into trouble (and that one time Daryl got Dean in trouble back)orThe Supernatural/Walking Dead crossover no one asked for but could totally have happened.





	1. Chapter 1

Dean Winchester had been getting Daryl Dixon into trouble for years, like it was his damn job. 

He was never around long, blowing into town in a storm of Zepplin and danger with his little brother- the same years between them as between Daryl and Merle- and his intense as all hell dad, before rolling on out same as they came in, leaving Daryl dazed, confused, and usually in trouble in their wake. Dean didn't aim to get Daryl in trouble or to leave him in the lurch; it just kind of happened. Nature of their lives and of Daryl's life, and all that shit.

First time he met Dean, Daryl noticed the big ass knife in the kid's jacket pocket. He asked if Dean did any hunting- just trying to be nice to the new kid-and Dean started talking shit about ghosts and werewolves and even friggin’ chupacabra. Daryl’d scoffed and told him eleven was too old to believe in fairy tale shit like that. Dean had punched him square on the jaw and told him to meet him at the hotel they were staying in at midnight, or he’d tell everyone Daryl was a little bitch. 

Daryl knew damn well no one would give a shit what Dean said about him- he was a Dixon, after all- but Merle was fifteen and in juvie and didn’t need to deal with it if Daryl started getting jumped in school because this asshole started spreading shit around. 

So he’d snuck out of the house, knowing nothing good was going to come of this, and met Dean. Dean’d tossed him a shovel with a smirk, and they’d ended up in the goddamn graveyard, sweaty and dirty and dumping salt and gasoline on some fuck’s corpse. Dean flashed a wicked grin at Daryl and said something along the lines of 'watch this' as he lit a whole book of matches and dropped them in. 

When that lady had appeared, screaming and burning, Daryl’d about shit his pants, all while Dean the asshole laughed maniacally at his expression. Daryl never questioned Dean’s claims again (well, except for the chupacabra, but even Daryl wasn’t willing to talk about that story).

'Course, his daddy’d beat the shit out of him when he tried to tell him they’d gotten busted by the security guard for grave robbery because they were fighting ghosts. His daddy’d told him he was too damn old to believe in pussy shit like that, and he’d better toughen up so he didn’t sully the Dixon name. Daryl’d thought about mentioning that the Dixon name was already pretty fuckin’ tarnished, but he already had a black eye and a split lip, and that was enough thanks. 

By the time Merle got back from juvie the bruises had healed and the Winchesters were gone, so Daryl never saw any point in telling Merle about his adventure. 

 

 

The second time Dean got Daryl in trouble he wasn’t even there. A year after the Winchesters split town, eight year old Sammy showed up on Daryl’s door with panicked eyes and an urgent need for a stake made from an ash tree and dipped in fresh, living blood. 

Daryl’d blinked, confused as all hell, but the ghost incident made him inclined to believe these Winchester assholes crazy requests were, in fact, for the greater good. He’d gotten the kid his ash stake, but when they went for fresh, living blood, Daryl’d cut a little too deep and ended up passing out. 

Sammy’d called nine one one and Daryl’d been rushed to the emergency room for stitches. When Child Protective Services came to call, his daddy’d put on that fake smile he got, spun a bunch of bullshit Merle and Daryl had agreed with so they wouldn’t be separated from each other, and closed the door in her face. 

Merle was sixteen and took the hit for Daryl- like he did whenever he was around to do so- and Daryl’d sworn up and down he was never going to help Dean fucking Winchester again. 

 

 

Six months after that, Dean appeared in class with a smirk and a wave, dropping a classic rock tape on Daryl’s desk and thanking him for helping Sammy out. Dean had his arm in a cast and a fierce shiner on his eye, and Daryl’d asked him where he got it, expecting some wild ride of a tale from the kid he was already starting to believe was some kind of superhero. 

Dean’s face had shut down real fast and he said it was his fault, really, John had told him to watch out for Sammy and Dean had fucked it up on a hunt. Daryl got real quiet, thinking about his brother- fresh from another stint in juvie for dealing pot; only home two days- and the broken ribs Merle’d been trying to hide from Daryl when he’d left the house that morning. 

Daryl didn’t say anything else to Dean about it, just nodded and asked what the stake had been for, and Dean’s green eyes had lit up as he told Daryl all about some weird-ass deep South legend that Dean swore up and down was true. 

Dean, Sammy, and Daryl hung out every day after school for two weeks straight that time before their dad found whatever monster he’d been hunting. Daryl was with Sam and Dean when John called, looking for some random bit of information on something he called a Rawhead. Dean had sighed and looked at Sam, then muttered about breaking into the library. 

Daryl’d thought about just going home, but hell, he was curious. What was a twelve and a half year old to do but break into the library right alongside his larger-than-life friend? 

Daryl’d called Merle when they’d gotten arrested, and Merle had had to do some fast talking to keep Daryl out of juvie for that one. The name Dixon had almost damned him, despite it being only his first offense (that grave robbing thing the local sheriff had written off as boys being boys and never put in an official report), but apparently John Winchester had put in a good word for Daryl as well, when he came to get Dean and Sammy. 

Dean had waved goodbye with that smirk and Daryl had rolled his eyes with a huff, and when he got to school the next day, the Winchesters were gone.

 

Daryl was sixteen before Dean came back. He slumped in the back of the classroom hoping to stay mostly invisible, because while he thought school was a damn waste of time at least it wasn’t home, where his dad was heading toward passed out drunk. 

Merle’d left two years before, running off to join the army, and Daryl’s back ached like a sonnuva bitch from his daddy’s belt. He was pretty sure he’d have an ugly-ass scar, since he’d had to fuckin’ stitch himself up, and all he wanted was to make it through two more years so he could get the hell out of dodge and fuckin’ live. 

When the teacher said they had a new student named Dean Winchester, Daryl’s head had shot up in surprise. Hell, he hadn’t even thought about Dean in a long damn time, but sure enough there the asshole was, tall as shit and wearing a leather coat that was too big for him, winking at the prettiest girl in class as he looked her over with that smirk. 

Daryl rolled his eyes and slumped further down in his seat, not sure if he wanted Dean to remember him or not.

At lunch, Daryl was sitting on the bleachers with a cigarette between his lips, wondering just how inebriated his dad would be when he got home and generally trying to be invisible. Dean plopped down beside him out of nowhere and grinned. 

“’Sup, Dixon. Talk to me about Amanda,” he said, like it hadn’t been four damn years since he’d seen Daryl.

Daryl sighed and offered him a cigarette, and adventure number four began. 

The Winchesters were there for two months that time, and Dean dated every damn girl in the school somehow, despite the fact that he was making out with at least three of them in the same damn day and only seemed to hang out with Daryl Dixon and his own little brother Sammy. Daryl asked Sam in an aside once how the hell Dean did it, and the kid had grinned as he watched his big brother chat up two of the senior girls like it was easy. Dean looked back at Daryl and Sammy and winked at them, trying to get Daryl to come over with a jerk of his head. 

Daryl scoffed and shook his head no, and minutes later Dean was leaning over their table in the library with a scowl. 

“How come you never want to have any fun, Dixon? Those are senior girls. Senior girls, man!” Dean said, grinning and ruffling Sam’s hair affectionately. 

Daryl just rolled his eyes. “I’m a Dixon, asshole. Ain’t nobody in this town wants to run with me. All know my old man.” 

Dean got that look, the one Daryl was starting to recognize meant trouble, and Daryl shook his head again. “Leave it alone, Winchester,” he said firmly, and Dean held his eyes for a minute but nodded. 

“Come on, guys, let’s get out of here,” Dean said about two seconds later, when Sam and Daryl both went back to doing homework. “Homework’s boring. Let’s have some fun.” 

Fun, it turns out, ended with a half-drunk Daryl doctoring his own burns and having to explain to his old man why their shed- the one with his daddy’s homebrew in it- was on fire. Dean had wanted to stick around and help, but Daryl- who knew what the fuck was coming as soon as the cigarette had fallen from his lips in slow motion- had sent him on home, telling him in a grim, exhausted voice to take care of Sammy. 

Next day, Daryl’d barely kept in the yelp when Dean flopped into his chair beside him and clapped him on the back. Dean had gotten that look again, the one where his jaw set and those usually-laughing green eyes got hard as steel- and drug Daryl kicking and screaming into the bathroom to have a look. 

“I’mma rip his lungs out!” Dean roared when he saw- over Daryl’s continuing protests- Daryl’s back, ready to go to war over Daryl Dixon. Daryl didn't think he'd ever had a friend aside from his brother, and look how that turned out? But he'd talked Dean down, telling him it was no big deal, because the last thing Daryl wanted was Dean getting hurt for him. 

Dean and Sam were gone two days later, but at least this time they had a chance to say goodbye, after school while their dad waited in that Impala Daryl itched to get under the hood of. 

 

 

After another six months, they blew through town again. Daryl’d picked up a part time job as a local grease monkey, and Dean was waiting for him in the garage one Saturday, the Impala parked in the bay and Dean with a shit eating grin on his face. 

Car’d broken down and even Dean and John hadn’t been able to fix it all on their own, so they were in town for one night and one night only. The scars on Daryl’s back had started to burn even as he’d grinned back at his crazy friend. They’d fixed the Impala and then gone into the woods with a bottle of Jack and Daryl’s crossbow, and for the first time, Dean had visited and Daryl didn’t end up in trouble. 

 

 

It was two years before they laid eyes on each other again, but at least they’d stayed in touch this time. Daryl’d worked his ass off to be able to get a pretty basic cell phone he paid for by himself, graduated high school with a piss poor GPA, and taken a full time job at the garage. He’d built himself a bike from the ground up, and he and Dean had kept in steady contact through texts and calls and photos from the moment Daryl’d gotten his phone. 

Dean kept Daryl entertained with stories and pictures of his adventures, and Daryl kept him updated on what Dean called ‘civilian life’. Daryl just called it fuckin’ life, and he didn’t know how normal it was, but it was his. 

“Yo, Dixon,” a familiar voice called as Daryl shut off his bike, and he was grinning as he pulled off his helmet and looked around. “Bout time you showed up. Sammy’s waiting, man, come on.” 

Dean leaned against the Impala, arms crossed in that same battered leather jacket, and gave him a cocky grin. Daryl could see the smirk had grown up along with his friend, and he rolled his eyes as he swung off the bike and headed over slowly. 

Slowly, because he’d broken up a bar fight his daddy’d started, and motorcycle gangs in Atlanta don’t take too kindly to punk-ass eighteen year old rednecks with more mouth than brains. Daryl was lucky he was alive and he damn well knew it, and he wasn’t sure he was up to an adventure with Dean today. 

On the other hand, it’d been two fuckin’ years and he needed to blow off a little steam. 

“What the hell ya doin’ here, asshole? Couldn’t text first?” he grunted at Dean. When Dean tried to go in for a hug, Daryl flinched back. 

Dean got that look and was in the trailer before Daryl could blink. Daryl followed him, and found Dean staring down at his passed out old man, snoring with his hand down the front of his pants. 

“Why are you still here, Dixon?” Dean asked, turning his pissed off look on Daryl. Daryl shrugged. 

“Where the hell else’m I gonna go?” he asked, eyes shifting away from his friends. 

Dean sighed loudly, dramatic asshole that he was. “Come with us. Dad’d train you up like he did me and Sammy. Need extra hands all the time.” 

Daryl thought about it. He thought about it hard, because goddamn did it sound good to him. Travelling with Sam and Dean, hunting ghosts and werewolves and shit? Sounded like the damn dream to Daryl. 

He thought about it all during dinner with Sam and Dean, laughing and joking over beer they were too damn young to get legally. Dean had a fake id and a wicked grin, and the waitress was toast before they’d even sat down. They told him some story he didn’t know that he believed about something called a wendigo- sounded fake as shit to Daryl- and Daryl told them about the bikers the night before. 

Dean got that look again, but Daryl shut him down with a lazy wave, and turned the conversation to what they were doing there. Dean’s face lit up as he described some freaky ghost case they were working, the first one their dad had let them do on their own, since he was too busy chasing down the demon that killed their mom.   
Dean and Daryl had a little too much in common, Daryl’d found out over the years. Both their moms had died in fires when they were young. Their fathers were both abusive bastards, though Dean insisted it wasn’t like that with John. Daryl knew how that went, and never pushed the issue. 

Maybe running with them was the answer. Daryl knew he was on a dead end ride to nowhere, and God knew his old man didn’t deserve Daryl’s continued efforts to keep him alive. But without his old man, Daryl had no one. 

Except maybe he did. Maybe he had the Winchesters. 

So he rode with them, swinging a tire iron at a ghost while Sammy figured out where the last bit of the dead asshole’s remains were and took care of it. He and Dean were grinning at each other as the ghost went up screaming, and Sam came running back in, eyes wide and out of breath, and started laughing with them. 

He was going. He would leave with them. 

Of course, his dad chose that night to OD, and Daryl got the call. Sam and Dean drove him to the hospital, and stayed until John demanded they come and help him with some demon sign. Dean looked like he’d rather stab himself in the eye than leave Daryl right then, but Daryl told him to go. 

Daryl stayed. 

Daryl stayed even though the cops who were investigating wanted to know why his name was on his dad’s fake prescription shit that he’d left all around the trailer while he puked his guts out and tried to choke on his own vomit. Daryl guessed, technically, that wasn’t really Dean’s fault. But Daryl’s blood alcohol level at the time sure was, and the cops were not really amused. 

Not at all. 

Daryl stayed through that OD and two others, stayed until Merle came back and their daddy didn’t survive OD number four, stayed until Merle decided he wanted to go. Then they left. 

 

 

Daryl ran into Sam and Dean as often as the three of ‘em could swing, and every time Dean asked him why he wouldn’t drop Merle’s ass off at the nearest police station with a dime bag and a note saying ‘dealer; arrest me’. Daryl’d roll his eyes and shake his head and ask why Dean was still following his dad around like a good little soldier. They’d scowl at each other until Sam would hand them each a beer and they’d leave it alone. 

The thing with the chupacabra happened, and scared Merle sober for two solid weeks. Sammy went to college after a big fight with Dean and John, and Daryl handed Dean a beer wordlessly the next time they got together, because God knew Daryl knew how it felt for a brother you loved to turn his back on you. Merle kept getting worse and Dean and Daryl wondered just how they were getting so damn old before their fuckin' thirties. John disappeared; Sammy's girlfriend died; Daryl helped them look for the damn demon.

Then something even Daryl considered unexpected happened, and it was finally time for Daryl Dixon to get Dean Winchester into trouble. 

“Winchester? Yeah, man, grab ya brother and get your asses to Georgia. There’s something fucked up goin' on here. Your kinda shit. Dead people are walkin’ around tryin' to eat my ass.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, apparently this is happening, even though this was supposed to be a one shot. My muse is being a bit of a bitch and I can't settle on anything else to write, so here you are.
> 
> We'll see how far I go with this nonsense. Keep in mind, I'm committing to nothing.
> 
> Meanwhile, enjoy Bisexual Disaster Dean and Done With This Shit Daryl getting into more shenanigans.

Daryl didn’t know if Sam and Dean had made it to Georgia. Last contact he’d had with Dean before everything really went to shit, the two of them were stopping off at the Roadhouse to check in with Ellen and Jo and Ash, then were headed his way. He’d told Dean to meet them in Atlanta, and Dean had been stressed out and yelling about something he called a Croatoan virus and the end of the world. 

Daryl figured fuckin’ zombies meant it pretty much was the end of the world, no matter how it had come about, but he really hoped Dean wasn’t right about all that gates of Hell and demon nonsense. 

Daryl and Merle had run like hell out of Atlanta before things got really bad, watching from the woods near the highway as the helicopters went overhead and bombed the shit out of the place. Merle thought the looming apocalypse was a divine blessing; a chance for the Dixon boys to steal their way into moving up in the world. Daryl thought Merle was an idiot and was waiting for Merle’s stash of shit to run out so maybe he’s sober up and go back to being the brother he remembered from before Merle left. 

Daryl hoped Sam and Dean were safe, not sure if he wanted them to still somehow find their way to Atlanta so he could know for sure they were or if he hoped they were still at the Roadhouse tryin’ to figure out how to fix the world. Between them, Sammy and that strange smarty pants Ash could probably solve every problem, and Dean’d watch their asses while they did it. 

‘Course, that’s if Dean wasn’t too busy trying to hook up with Jo. Daryl wondered how in the hell Sam put up with it, since he knew for a fact (from endless text messages with pictures he didn’t wanna see, damn it Dean) that Dean had made it his personal life’s mission to hook up with a girl in every town they went. 

When he asked Sam that question the last time they’d been together, while Dean leaned over the bar and tried desperately to get the hot bartender’s number, Sam had sighed and muttered that it was better than the alternative. Daryl eyed him suspiciously, and after dancing around the subject it turned out that Daryl and Sam had both had the unfortunate experience of catching an extremely drunk Dean with his tongue down some dude’s throat in the men’s room of a shady bar. 

Or two, or three. 

It was something they never mentioned to Dean himself, who was a walking bisexual disaster of repression if Daryl’d ever seen one, and Daryl had been relieved to be able to ask Sam a few pointed questions about his best friend’s blatant overcompensation. Sam confirmed some of Daryl’s suspicions about John’s drunken rants when they were younger, so there was that they all had in common.

Then there was the added bonus of bonding with Sam over their brother’s insistence on clinging to heteronormativity, since Daryl’d also walked in on his own brother with a man on a very memorable occasion. Merle'd been high and wasted, and, well- Merle’s tongue hadn’t been down the other guy’s throat, that's for sure. Sam had paled when Daryl told him what he’d walked in on, clearly imagining what it'd be like to see his own brother in such a state. They’d both gotten pretty damn drunk that night, and stayed the fuck out of the men’s room.

Daryl wished his friend would figure his shit out, especially after John’s death had fucked Dean up so badly. Daryl’d gotten a drunken phone call from Dean the night they burned John's body where Dean had cried more than a little and told him their dad had said he might have to kill Sammy. Daryl had told his friend bluntly and with zero hesitation that his dad was an abusive asshole and Daryl was glad he was dead. John had been telling Dean all his life that it was Dean's responsibility to keep that kid alive, and then he went and pulled something like that on his deathbed? Fuck that noise.

Dean hadn’t talked to him for a month afterward, but Sam had kept him appraised of how things were going in their lives and Daryl hadn’t worried about it too much. Dean wasn't exactly known for his evenness of temper. 

They started talking again when he’d gotten a panicked phone call from Dean where Dean asked him all kinds of questions about his mom’s death and how old Daryl’d been at the time. Dean had been beyond relieved when Daryl had said he was somewhere around five or six, and what the hell man? 

“Sammy’s psychic now. Because of the demon blood,” Dean answered, and hung up the phone. 

Daryl’d hopped on his bike and gone to the Roadhouse for the first time after a frantic- and confused- call of his own to Sam. Turns out, demons were real, psychic ‘special children’ were real, the chupacabra was no longer the wildest thing he'd ever heard of from the Winchesters, and Daryl had to admit Jo was pretty hot. She was also just as obviously off limits (Ellen was terrifying and Daryl was not afraid to admit it) and that was cool with Daryl. He didn’t have time for more than scratching an itch with a one night stand anyway, what with keeping him and his brother alive and out of jail. 

He’d helped Sam and Dean out as much as he could, before the dead had started rising and taking bites out of people, and he’d seen some freaky-ass shit. So this whole zombie thing? It didn’t phase him all that much. 

Trying to manage his brother’s racist, homophobic, repressed ass in close quarters with a bunch of people who relied on him in part to keep them fed and fuckin’ alive, even while they looked at him like he was a ticking time bomb the same as his brother? That was harder. 

Daryl found himself in the woods as much as he possibly could be, which wasn’t hard considering the urgent need for game to keep these other idiots fed, and wishing Dean was there for him to share an eye roll and a sigh with. As it was, Daryl was spending most of his time and energy trying to come up with what might have caused the dead to start walking and what the hell to do about it. 

He’d listened to Sammy preach about the power of research more than a few times, but he’d like to see the kid do any of that shit without the internet or the ability to access obscure books in the library. Or any books that weren’t in Dale’s RV. 

Then again, Sam had some kind of magical ability to generate wifi in places there sure as hell shouldn’t have been wifi. 

Damn it, this was not Daryl’s gig. It was the Winchesters', and he really, really wished they were here to handle it. He’d have been delighted to see John roll up, even.   
So imagine his surprise when he wandered back into camp one day after a two-day stint in the woods and found the group beating the shit out of a geek that’d been gnawing on the deer he’d put three arrows in and been tracking for hours. Undead bastard. At least the group was back from Atlanta, though, which was both one less and one more thing for him to worry about. 

“Come on, assholes, it’s gotta be the brain!” he snapped at them, shooting the thing through the skull. 

There was some new guy with them, a tool who seemed to know Shane rather well. Shane was kinda the unofficial leader of the group, which was fine with Daryl but pissed Merle off to no end. Daryl had enough on his plate what with feeling obligated to figure out how to save the world and all; he’d leave the day to day management of this group of helpless dicks to someone else. 

Of course, Shane wanted to talk to him. And of course it was about Merle, and of course the new guy came too. That would have been enough of a problem for Daryl as it was, but then he heard a familiar voice coming from Dale’s RV. 

“Hey, Dale, right? Do you have any wifi in this thing?” 

“Sam?” Daryl yelled, confused as all hell, and then a grinning Sammy Winchester stepped out, holding his beat up laptop. 

He and Daryl exchanged a backslapping hug, because thank God the more qualified people were here to handle this shit. Where Sammy went, Dean wasn't going to be far behind, and Daryl was looking around for Dean and yelling for Merle to get his ugly ass out there and help skin the squirrels Daryl’d gotten when he registered the discomfort of everyone there. 

Shit. “What happened?” Daryl asked, looking from Sam to Shane to the new asshole. 

“Um,” Sam started, and New Guy stepped forward. 

“I’m Rick Grimes. Your brother was a danger to the group and I had to handcuff him to the roof in Atlanta.” 

Ok, look. It wasn’t like Daryl found that shit hard to believe. He just didn’t know how in the hell Sam had agreed to leave his ass there, and where the fuck Dean was. Or who this Rick Grimes guy thought he was, makin’ decisions like that. 

“Dean stayed with him. They’ll be ok. We’re going back, anyway. Rick left a big ass bag of guns in the middle of the road when he ran into a mob of these things in the city,” Sam told him quietly, and Daryl felt himself relax, just a little. 

If Dean was there, his brother’d be fine. Of course, then Daryl looked at Sam and Sam made that patented Sam Winchester Bitchface that let Daryl know he was thinking the same thing Daryl was. Dean and Merle would either end up killing each other or screwing each other. 

Hell, maybe both. 

They had to get back to Atlanta like now. 

 

Turns out, Dean and Merle didn’t kill each other. Or, as close as Daryl could tell, screw each other. They did punch each other for awhile, and then Merle had cut his own goddamn hand off and run away while Dean was busy dealing with Fright Night On the Roof. 

That was Dean’s phrasing, not Daryl’s. Still. 

Dean was pissed and acting more Dean than ever, yelling at Daryl and Rick, Glenn, and T Dog (the rescue team) about everything from how Daryl should have ditched Merle years ago to leaving Sam behind in the quarry to this thing he called the Croatoan virus and demons and how Dean himself might be going to hell. Rick, T Dog, and Glenn were looking back and forth between Daryl and Dean as Dean raged and Daryl waited him out wordlessly, looking like they were trying to decide if they should intervene before the crazy person snapped. Daryl waved them off even as he made a mental note to ask about that going-to-hell thing later, and Dean eventually calmed the fuck down, like Daryl’d known he would. Wasn't the first Dean Winchester rant he'd lived through and fuck knew it wouldn't be the last.

“How ya been, man?” Daryl asked mildly when Dean’s rant fizzled out. 

“Shit, dude. Glad you called; missed your ass. Roadhouse crew say hey,” Dean answered, and the two of them did a repeat of Daryl and Sam’s backslapping hug, but different, 'cause it was Dean. Dean held on a little too long and a little too tight, though, and Daryl moved asking him about hell up a bit higher on the priority list. His friend wasn't doing to great, and had glossed over Daryl's question about how he'd been a little too neatly. 

Then Glenn got himself semi-kidnapped while trying to get the guns, and they rescued him, Dean bitching Daryl’s ear off about goddamn civilians. Rick had glared and informed them coolly that he was a deputy sheriff, to which Dean had sneered and informed him that that was worse than a civilian. Then he’d made a crack about if Rick’d shot the sheriff. 

Daryl’d told him in an aside that no, that’d been Shane. 

Rick hadn’t found it funny, but Glenn had. Daryl liked that kid. 

 

The good times kept rolling when they got back to camp and found it fuckin’ overrun with biters. People were dead and Daryl’s dumbass brother had been nowhere to be found in Atlanta and now Rick wanted them to go to the CDC. Shane wanted to head to an army base, and Sam and Dean were standing to the side with their arms crossed and muttering to each other about how neither of those options were going to do a damn bit of good and they had to wait for Ash to figure shit out. 

Daryl sighed, scrubbed a hand tiredly across his eyes, and headed to Sam and Dean while the others argued and Andrea waited for her sister to turn. 

“Winchester. What ya thinkin’, man?” Daryl asked, relieved as hell to not be in charge of these decisions. 

Dean shook his head, eyeing the group. “Sheriff Rick’s got a good head on his shoulders, but the CDC isn’t going to do shit, Dixon,” he said seriously. “This is demon work, you know that right?” 

“Yeah, man, I do. But these people? They ain’t been around you since they were kids. They ain’t gonna react to ‘its a demon virus’ very well. And hell, didn’t ya say Sammy was immune?” Daryl asked abruptly, remembering a long phone call, half a bottle of Jack, and Dean’s worried voice telling him about their adventure in Oregon. 

Sam grimaced and Dean nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Why?” 

Daryl shrugged. “CDC’s as good a place as any to get that shit checked out, man. See if they could use Sam’s blood to make a cure or some shit.” 

Sam was considering it, getting that hopeful puppy look in his eyes as he stared at Dean’s scowl. Kid just wanted to do good in the world, Daryl knew, especially after the demon blood revelation.

“Alright,” Dean agreed slowly, and that was that. They were going to the CDC.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry, in my world everyone's bi, apparently.

See, the thing was- the thing was, Daryl knew getting drunk at the CDC was a bad idea. He knew getting drunk at the CDC with Sam, Dean, Shane, and Rick was an even worse idea. Daryl did it anyway; so honestly, he only had himself to blame for the situation he was now in. 

He sighed loudly and looked at Sam, who shrugged. 

"I say we leave them there. Let them figure it out when they wake up." 

That sounded like a recipe for disaster to Daryl, but putting off dealing with what would undoubtedly be a crisis over Dean's sexuality that needed a professional therapist and maybe a priest as well but would have only one emotionally constipated Dixon to manage it was something he could get behind. Putting it off indefinitely would be ideal, but seeing as how either Dean or Shane were bound to wake up and notice their state of undress eventually, he figured that was a bit of a pipe dream. 

"How much trouble we gonna be in for when he wakes up?" Daryl asked as they closed the door to the room firmly behind them and went to find the others. 

Sam shrugged. "Honestly? I've no idea." 

"Great." 

 

 

Turns out the looming threat of impending death-by-building-suicide was enough to distract from even that mess. Dean had been an agitated ball of ready to kill someone energy, joining Daryl in taking an ax to the doors and then nodding in approval when Shane started unloading the shotgun into the computers. When sweet, beaten-down Carol pulled out a grenade that she'd found in Rick's pants, Dean's eyes had lit up and his unceasing rant about not trusting government agents for "this exact reason, Dixon; this is why we don't do cops" came to an end. 

He'd pulled the pin, thrown the thing, and dove to cover Sam. The window blew and Dean laughed as he hauled Sam and Daryl to their feet, shoving them ahead of him and standing shoulder to shoulder with Rick while he helped the kids and the women out first. 

So maybe Dean wasn't as anti-cops as he seemed. 

Then they were skidding to the ground behind Daryl's truck and the building fucking blew, taking Jacqui and Doctor Jenner with it and almost taking Andrea and Dale. At the last minute, the two of them came running out, and Daryl felt something in his chest ease. A glance at Dean showed his friend felt the same. If there was one thing Daryl knew, it was that Dean carried the weight of the fucking world on those shoulders, and the snappy sarcasm and charming grin covered a world of guilt over everyone he couldn't save. 

 

 

The three of them piled into Merle's truck and they were driving again, making a go for Fort Benning. Daryl was thinking about the talk he'd had with the Winchester brothers the night before, before the heavy drinking had begun, and what Dean had told him about Sammy fucking dying and Dean selling his soul to save the kid's life. Daryl honestly didn't know what in the world to do with that kind of information; because what. the actual. Fuck?

He didn't question Dean's reasoning; he damn well knew it. Dude loved his brother more than anything else in the world, up to and including his own damn life. Doing whatever it took to bring him back wasn't the part Daryl was getting hung up on. No, that was the whole hell-is-an-actual-place and demons have names and shit. 

And if that was the case, then where the fuck were they? 'Cause all Daryl'd been seeing for a long time was brainless, mindless, flesh-eating monsters. 

Whatever. He needed to talk to the guy again, but he wasn't sure that was such a good idea. He and Sam exchanged a look, which was easy enough since Sam was in the middle and Daryl was on the passenger side. How the fuck Dean had conned him into driving, Daryl didn't know. 

"Where's the car?" Daryl asked suddenly, realizing the extension of Dean's being that was his Impala was missing for the first time. Sue him; he'd been a little busy since the boys found him. 

Dean turned a hot glare Daryl's way and he felt the blood drain from his head. That was the kind of look Dean reserved for people who tried to hurt Sammy or Daryl himself, and it was fuckin' terrifying. 

"Shit. Sorry, man," he muttered, and Dean shook his head and looked back at the road. 

"My baby's fine. I grounded her at the Roadhouse so Jo and Ellen could keep an eye on her. Gas being scarce like it is; didn't want to have to ditch her somewhere else," Dean finally said. 

Daryl breathed a sigh of relief. That removed a level of complication from this. "So, uh, Dean-" he started awkwardly, and Dean cut him off. 

"I like dick sometimes too. What about it?" 

Sam and Daryl exchanged wide-eyed looks and Dean's glare out the front window intensified. 

Finally, Daryl spoke. "Nothin', man. Ain't like I give a shit. Just wonderin' about your, uh, choice in partner there. Shane's kinda an asshole, is all." 

"Yeah? Well, so am I. Not gonna happen again, though, so let's not talk about it anymore. God knows he won't; he's so far in the closet he's going to find fucking Narnia," Dean grunted, looking pissed. 

Daryl privately wondered if Dean thought he was much further out of that same damn closet, but this whole conversation was going far better than he'd ever dreamed. Sam looked like he wanted to die- again- or throw himself out of the vehicle at full speed instead of being between Daryl and Dean for this conversation, and Daryl took pity on him. Besides, something Dean said had him curious anyway. 

"Narnia a real place, Winchester?" he asked, and Dean laughed and grinned. 

"Not that we've found so far, but hell- this version of Georgia's about as impossible to believe," he said, flashing Daryl that shit eating grin that usually meant Daryl was about to get in trouble. 

 

Dean hit the woods at the same time as Rick to go after that little girl. Sam grabbed Daryl's arm and held him back, hissing that someone needed to keep an eye on the rest of the group, and if anyone could find her it was Dean. 

Daryl conceded that he had a point, since if he and Sam hit the woods, these people would be left with the increasingly erratic Shane in charge. Daryl wondered what the hell had happened between Shane and Dean, because Shane was acting even more of an asshole than normal. And he hadn't even looked Dean's way properly since they left the CDC. 

Dean didn't seem particularly distressed about it, so Daryl just left that entire ticking time bomb of a situation be and took the opportunity to check in with Sam while the two of them stood on top of the RV. Daryl was keeping watch, and Sam was pushing buttons on his laptop and frowning. He'd recharged the thing at the CDC and had been hording his battery life in the few days since, and Daryl didn't know what the fuck the kid thought was going to happen. He think there'd be wifi signal on the middle of a highway in Bumfuck, Georgia? 

Shit, Daryl didn't want to think about bum fuck anything, seeing as how he was avoiding the whole Dean and Shane mess. 

"Hey, Sammy," he asked, just to shut up his own internal monologue. "How'd Dean doing with this whole selling his soul thing really? What are we doing to stop that shit?" 

Sam sighed loudly and looked up at him, giving him the patented Sam Winchester Puppy Eyes. "I don't know. He won't talk about it, and he won't even let me do anything to try to get him out of the deal. Apparently the Crossroads Demon said if he tries, I die again." 

"Shit," Daryl muttered, chewing on his thumbnail. 

"Yeah," Sam agreed. 

"We doin' something about it anyway?" Daryl asked after a minute, and Sam shot him an amused look. 

"I've got Ash and Jo working on some things for me, and I've been doing some research on some options. At least, I was before the internet disappeared. Hey, remember when Dean got electrocuted on the Rawhead case and he almost died?" 

"Yeah. He called me all pitiful sayin' goodbye and to take care of you'n shit. I hauled ass up there just in time for him to be fuckin' cured. Some faith healer or somethin'? Where's one of them for these dead pricks," Daryl muttered. 

Sam nodded. "Yeah, that's the one. The healer's wife had managed to chain a reaper; harness its power to reaper those she chose instead of the person whose time it was to die. We took care of it, of course, but I've been wondering if maybe some version of that is what's happening here? I wish the CDC had still had access to the internet. Or had had some lore books in the basement or something. Wish we could talk to Bobby," the kid muttered, frowning down at his laptop again. 

Daryl grunted. "Honestly, kid, I have no idea what half of what you just said meant. Try talking to Dean about it when he gets back, man." 

 

 

Dean and Rick came back without the girl, and Daryl started to get pissed and worried. This time he went into the woods with Rick, since he was better in the damn woods than Dean. Dean had started to come along, but Daryl had used the same logic on Dean that Sammy had used on him. Dean had scowled and stayed behind.  
Daryl found the girl's trail, but it ended abruptly. After looking until nearly dark and not managing to pick up any other trace of her, he was starting to consider both alien abduction and divine intervention as legitimate answers to his endless series of 'what the fuck' questions. 

Dean scoffed and told him angrily that the divine didn't exist. He didn't say anything about aliens, though, and Daryl found that more than a little disturbing. 

 

The next day they split into search parties and kept looking for her. Carol was losing her shit, and Daryl couldn't blame her. He'd have been going nuts, too, if he had a kid loose in the world with all the damn walkers. He'd gotten lost in the woods for six days once when he was a kid and no one had even noticed, so seeing Carol freak out over her little girl ate at his heart.

Dean and Sam had taken an instant liking to her, with Sam looking at Carol like she was the mother he'd never known. That made both Dean and Daryl sad, and Dean had commented to Daryl while they were looking for Sophia that Carol reminded him a lot of his mom. Carol just reminded Daryl a lot of himself and Merle and a whole lot of other people he'd known, Sam and Dean included, who'd been beaten down and told they were worthless long enough to nearly believe it. 

He was determined to find the girl and bring her home to her mom, but then out of nowhere some girl on a horse rode up, asking for Lori and telling them Carl'd been shot. 

Dean's rant about trusting people and civilians and kids being hurt when assholes didn't do their jobs went in one of Daryl's ears and out the other, but Andrea wasn't so Zen about things. She got up in Dean's face and Dean, well- 

Dean had been under a lot of pressure lately, so Daryl wasn't really surprised that Dean exploded. 

He was surprised that when Dean exploded, it was with a rundown of what kind of shit was really out there- like ghosts and demons and literal, actual Hell itself. 

The whole damn group had looked at him and Sam like they were insane, but no one questioned it. After all, the dead were fucking walking.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I know. I haven’t touched it since May. 
> 
> I have writer’s block and Sarcastic Daryl makes me smile.

Carl had been shot, which Daryl considered to be a damn shame. He was a good kid, and didn't deserve the end of the world. The Winchesters looked grim and Dean looked guilty, but that was Dean's default setting in Daryl's experience. 

They spent some time wandering the woods that night, with Andrea in tow asking a thousand and one questions about the supernatural shit. If Sammy said "according to the lore" or “so get this” one more time, Daryl was going to put a crossbow bolt in his own ear just so he didn't have to keep hearing it. He and Dean moved further ahead, just so they didn't have to hear shit they already knew theorized to death by Sam and Andrea. 

"So, this hell thing, man," Daryl asked quietly. "Why won't ya let anyone help? And why the hell didn't ya call me sooner?" 

Dean shook his head and shined the light further into the trees, doing the irritated stalk with his pearl-handled piece gripped loose in his hand. "'Cause if I try to get out, Sammy dies again. And it just happened like a couple weeks ago. Shit's been on fast-forward Dad died, man." 

Daryl nodded, knowing it'd been an insane time for his friends. "We're gonna figure it out. This shit, too. Roadhouse will come up with something, or Sam will." 

"Don't know why you've got such blind faith in us, Dixon," Dean said quietly. "We haven't done anything but fuck up for years. Sometimes it feels like there's no fucking point to it. World wants to be destroyed, so why are he and I fighting so hard to save it?" 

Daryl snorted. "Because who else will? Rick and Shane? They seem functional to you?" 

Dean laughed and glanced back at the other two. He leaned closer to Daryl and grinned. "You know Shane was doing the cowboy's wife?" 

"Shit," Daryl said. "Naw, I missed that one. Jesus fuckin' Christ. No wonder Shane's a ball of fuckin' rage." 

"Yeah, being in the closet doesn't help," Dean muttered. "Look, I appreciate you not-" 

"Ain't my business who ya get your rocks off with, Winchester," Daryl mumbled when Dean cut off, neither of them looking at each other. "Don't have to talk if ya don't want, but can if ya do." 

Dean cleared his throat and smacked Daryl once on the shoulder. "Yeah, well. Don't worry, I'm not hitting on you or anything." 

Daryl lifted one eyebrow, surprised Dean might be afraid of how Daryl reacted. He’d thought they were better friends than that. Shit, he didn’t have a problem with Sam being the Second Coming of Demon Jesus, did he? So why would he give a shit about Dean liking men and women? "Shit, man, I look worried?" 

Dean paused, studied him for a minute, and smiled. "Come to think of it, you don't." 

"Cause like I said, it don't matter none," Daryl said firmly, and that was the end of that conversation. 

 

 

On the farm the next day, they found out the kid would pull through, the chick on the horse was the farmer's daughter and Glenn was in love, and Shane- well, Shane had shaved his head and told some bullshit story about one of the farmer's men sacrificing himself. 

Dean and Sam had huddled up with Daryl some distance away and Dean had asked how the hell the cop had come back with a dead man's gun if they'd been down to their last rounds and Otis was making the last stand. Daryl had snorted and they'd agreed to keep a closer eye on Shane, and then they went out to look for the little girl who was still missing. 

Dean had flat refused to give up his gun when on the farm, and Sam and Daryl had to do some fucking smooth talking to keep it from being a goddamn thing, but they'd managed to get him to agree to it after all. Out in the woods, Daryl found a closet where someone small had slept, and Dean shot him an amused look when he picked one of the Cherokee roses for Carol. 

"Got a crush?" Dean muttered. 

"Gonna fuck the cop again?" Daryl shot back. 

Sam looked like he was going to pass the fuck out, but Dean just laughed and shrugged. "I don't know, maybe. He’s a good damn time, when he's not fucking crazy." 

"I do not need to hear this," Sam muttered, and changed the subject. 

 

 

Then, because of course, the girl wasn't found, Shane was an increasingly erratic asshole, the Grimes-Walsh personal drama continued, Daryl fell on his own goddamn crossbow bolt and nearly got eaten, and Dean and Sam had to save his ass. 

Glenn and Maggie hooked up and Glenn discovered that the old man's barn was full of fucking walkers, and somehow Daryl wound up holding a gun along with everyone else as Shane went nuts and threw the damn barn open. Privately, Daryl didn't care. He was cool with it. 

Farmer and family, not so much. 

And then the little girl he'd nearly died trying to save came stumbling out, dead already, and Daryl busted his stitches open keeping Carol from running to her. After, when Carol didn't come to the funeral, Daryl was fucking done. Just fucking done. 

He upped and moved his camp away from everyone else's, and the next thing he knew he had Sam Winchester giving him soulful puppy eyes and asking what was wrong. Daryl snapped at him and sent him on his way, did the same to fucking Lori when she asked him to go hunt down her husband, and then learned later, from Sam, that Dean had gone to fetch the old man as well. 

Daryl made Carol cry, got guilt tripped over not going to look when Lori asked, and almost caved into the peer pressure to go look for the bitch. Shane went instead, and Daryl got another sad-faced lecture from Sammy that he ignored. 

The group came back the next morning with an extra in tow, and Dean and Daryl teamed up to question the kid about this other group of survivors. Neither of them liked the answers they received, and despite the Winchester Edict of 'no killing pure humans', Daryl was cool with putting a bullet in the kid's head and calling it a day. 

Apparently he was on Shane's side with that one, which he didn't really like, but the rest of the group was too, with the exception of Dale. After Rick and Shane got themselves into a fist fight and discovered the kid knew who Maggie Greene was and where the farm was when they tried to let him live, Rick called for a day to think and a group vote. Sam and Dean abstained, because this wasn't their gig, and Andrea flipped sides at the last minute, but the execution was scheduled and that was that. 

Except that of course it wasn't, and the next thing Daryl knew, he, Dean, Rick, and Shane were staring at Carl urging Rick to shoot the prisoner, and Daryl had the sinking feeling that there was going to be another group meeting. Dale died, Daryl shot him in the head, and everyone started to move into the big house. 

Daryl got asked to take the kid to the ass end of nowhere with Rick for Catch and Release Part Two, and he agreed cause someone fucking needed to watch the deputy’s back. But the kid escaped and everyone took to the woods for a manhunt instead, Dean bitching Daryl's ear off the whole way until Daryl wanted to ask the man how the fuck he and Sam had survived against all those monsters when Dean couldn't shut up for ten minutes at a stretch. 

Instead, he let Dean's rant go in one ear and out the other, and figured out that Shane was a fucking liar. 

The farm got overrun, Dean bitched some more, and Daryl saved Carol at the last minute. Everyone met up again on the highway, where they learned that Andrea, Patricia, and Jimmy had gotten bitten and Daryl had some suspicions about Shane’s death. Said suspicions were confirmed later when Rick revealed that Shane had tried to kill him and everyone turned. 

It wasn’t like Daryl didn’t believe the thing about Shane. And it wasn’t like he cared about the information cause if he was dead he already had bigger problems than trying to take someone out with him. 

But it was the sort of thing Daryl knew Sam and Dean needed to know in order to work this shit out- “we need information, Dean; lore and research!“- so it didn’t surprise him when Dean started a yelling match and Sam backed his brother up, albeit in a calmer way. 

He was surprised to hear Rick declare that the damn group wasn’t a democracy anymore, and he was even more surprised when Winchesters One and Two glanced at each other, shrugged, and said they were in. 

Daryl asked Dean later what parallel dimension he’d fucking stepped into in which the Winchesters were agreeing to follow someone else’s rules. 

Dean flashed him the shit eating grin and winked. “Who said we were? We’ll stick with Sheriff Dictator until we get a better feel for what the hell’s going or Ash figures out how to hit us up with a permanent solution. Then we save the world and get back to our own crisis. You in on that by the way? Or gonna keep following your dick brother in the drifter life after this?” 

Daryl appreciated both the belief that his brother was not in fact dead and the sheer confidence that there was an ‘after this’, but he wasn’t so sure- on either count. On the other hand, even if the world did return to normal one day, there was no fucking way Daryl could. 

He grinned back at Dean. “Ya know what, man? Yeah. I am.” 

“Glad to have you on board, brother,” Dean answered, and pulled Daryl into a hug. “That fucking crossbow will be killer for things that need staking. Yo, Sammy! We should have thought of that! Crossbow bolt stakes, bolts of different wood for every monster! Long range staking- no more up close and personal on the real zombies!”

“Real zombies” gave Daryl a bit of a pause, because what the hell did that make Georgia’s personal brand of the freaks? But Dean was on to planning how to carry lamb’s blood or dead man’s blood (the latter for vampires, which were also a thing and Daryl had questions, damn it), and well, Dean was like a kid at Christmas and Daryl fucking loved it. Daryl asked, completely sarcastically, why not do some sort of sectioned quiver with the bolts suspended in liquid, which was a ridiculous idea if Daryl had ever thought of one- right up there with holy water spray bottles and finding a blacksmith to forge them brass knuckles from pure iron, some of his other radical suggestions that had been shot down throughly by both Winchesters. (To be fair, Dean had loved the idea of punching ghosts in the face. John had not.)

Dean got a little more excited by the completely asinine idea than Daryl thought he should have, but then again, whatever made Dean happy had a habit of making Daryl happy too.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disaster Dean and Done With Everyone Daryl make me smile. Have another chapter; Happy Thanksgiving.

They took over a prison.

Daryl had expected far more protest from Dean over that one, but Sammy had just sighed and informed him that it wasn’t their first time. That was of infinite interest to Daryl, and he got the story from the kid while on watch the first night. Turns out his dumbass friends had allowed themselves to be caught- Dean was still wanted for that whole shapeshifter-murder deal, after all- and put in prison when a prison guard friend of their dad had asked for help with a ghost. Dean had almost died, which seemed to be a regular occurrence for him and Daryl had some things to say about that, goddamn it; and their friend had let them escape after a solid hit to the jaw. 

Sam had admitted to Daryl that he had honestly been afraid Dean wasn’t going to leave. Prison, it turned out, suited Dean. Considering the number of crimes both large and small that Daryl had committed with the Winchesters, he wasn’t at all surprised. 

He was surprised when disaster struck as disaster always did and they ended up chopping old man Hershel's leg off to try to keep him alive. He was even more surprised when in doing so, they found five prisoners alive and well, hiding in the cafeteria.

Turned out they'd been there the whole fucking time, all ten months or so since the outbreak started. That time table had Sam and Daryl exchanging concerned looks, not for the prisoners or even the great state of fucking Georgia, but for Dean. He'd had less than a year before going to hell at the beginning of all this, and, Sammy told Daryl later, his time should have been up. 

They both watched Dean closely as they settled into the prison, but aside from backing Rick on killing that asshole Tomas with just a little too much gusto, Dean seemed fine. 

Sam found the prison library and had gotten fucking excited, only to discover a severe shortage of helpful books on the paranormal. He did, however, bring a copy of one of his law class textbooks back to cell block C with him, much to Daryl's amusement. 

Amusement came to a crashing halt when walkers stormed the place, they lost T Dog and Lori and Carol, Rick went batshit and headed into the tombs to do God knew what, and they suddenly had the Grimes-Walsh spawn crying and needy on their hands. Daryl took one look at the tiny little girl and decided he wasn't going to fucking bury her too, so he grabbed Maggie and took off for supplies while Dean took charge of both the grief-stricken, traumatized group and the baby.

Turns out, Dean Winchester was good with babies. That was a shock Daryl hadn't been expecting. Then again, he had pretty much raised Sammy. Daryl didn't know why he was so surprised. 

Of course, then the next day Maggie and Glenn went out on a formula run and didn't come back; Rick started getting phone calls from absolutely nowhere (which was an improvement on the serial killer walker slaying he'd been doing, to be fair); and some chick with a sword appeared at the gate. Sam and Dean were busy down in the boiler block where Rick had gotten his call, both of them producing beeping gizmos from pockets Daryl didn't know they had and starting a bunch of babble about how the generators might mess with EMF readings as they headed out of the room. 

Daryl hadn't felt this guilty and alone in a damn minute, but he'd opened up to Carl about losing his mom and that left him feeling raw and empty. With Dean busy trying to save the world and Carol dead, Daryl found himself without anyone to talk to for the first time in awhile, and he didn't like that he didn't like it. So he wandered down into the boiler block for some solitude, where he found Carol's knife and a walker trapped in one of the isolation cells. Only, it turned out, it wasn't a walker. 

It was Carol. 

Sam and Dean had their heads together when he carried Carol back into cell block C, and the matching looks of awed joy in their eyes were a sight to behold. Sammy ran to Carol's side as Dean met Daryl's eyes and that one fucking tear slid down his friend's cheek before Dean scrubbed his palms over his eyes and jerked his head in the direction of the common area. 

"Sheriff Cowboy found something. Go take a look and get his ass in here," Dean suggested. 

 

 

 

The chick with the sword had brought a basket of baby supplies with her, and Daryl had a sinking feeling something had gone wrong. 

He was correct. 

Maggie and Glenn had been captured by some asshole the sword chick described as a 'Jim Jones type', which boded real well in Daryl's opinion. A rescue team was formed and departed, with Daryl and the Winchester boys holding a quick conference and deciding Daryl would go and they would stay at the prison and work Rick's magic phone angle. They were all pretty sure that was nothing, but it had to be checked out, just in case. 

"Sometimes ghosts use technology to reach out," Sammy said with a shrug and that hopeful puppy look in his eyes. "EMF readings were inconclusive. I highly doubt it's a lead, but it's the first progress we've had all winter." 

Daryl grunted, Dean bitched about Daryl being safe, and he headed out with Rick, Michonne the sword chick, and one of the two surviving prisoners. 

Of course it all went to shit about two minutes in, but wasn't that always the case? Daryl thought with a heavy feeling of resignation. They made it into Woodbury, found Maggie and Glenn by some miracle, and then he found out Merle was part of all this nonsense. Merle was with this fucking Governor, and Rick wouldn't let him go look for his brother. 

And thing was, Rick was right. Maggie and Glenn needed him. But it was Merle. Maybe he'd been a piece of shit since he got back from the army, but he'd been Daryl's only fucking lifeline when they were kids, and he'd left him behind once. 

Turns out Daryl didn't have to come back for him, since Woodbury caught up to them and Daryl got picked up laying down cover fire for the rest of them to get away. Then, in what he supposed he should have seen coming- it was just the way his luck worked, after all- Daryl ended up in Fight Club with Merle, only it was a fight to the fucking death. With walkers as a special treat. 

Honest to God, Daryl couldn't have made this shit up if he tried. 

He thought, for a minute or two, Merle was actually going to kill him. Merle was giving him a solid beat down, making a speech to the Governor asshole, and Daryl was wondering just what the hell had happened to Merle after he ran away from Dean. All the sudden Merle yanked him to his feet and told him to 'follow his lead', but following Merle's lead was just punching walkers in the face to try to stay alive. Once again, Daryl found himself wishing Dean were at his back, and thinking those pure iron brass knuckles might have come in handy for bashing the skulls in on these walkers, too. 

He should have known Rick would stage a rescue, and as the smoke grenades filled the ring with swirling chaos as the lights went out, Daryl snatched his crossbow from the hands of someone who shouldn't be fuckin' touching it- he had a brief moment to think he was getting about as attached to the bow as Dean was to that goddamn car and maybe that wasn't a good thing- grabbed Merle by the sleeve, and hauled ass out of there.

When Rick wouldn’t let Merle come back with them, Daryl weighed the good of the group against the good of Merle and realized he had to side with his brother. Dean would be pissed and maybe not speak to him ever again, but Daryl knew he'd get it if he took two minutes to consider it from Daryl's side. After all, the man was going to hell for Sammy, unless the Roadhouse crew managed to do something about that. Why the hell would Daryl not strike out on his own for his brother? 

Besides, it was just for a few days, he told himself as he gritted his teeth and followed Merle. Then Maggie and Glenn would calm down, or Sammy would turn those puppy eyes on them and convince them to give Merle another chance, and Dean would come and find them and bitch him up one side and down the other. 

Daryl was almost looking forward to it, because the Winchester brothers and the Dixon brothers together could do anything, in his opinion. They'd handled the chupacabra, right? And Merle had been high as kite the whole goddamn time.

 

 

Of course that wasn't quite the way it went, but it was close enough that Daryl didn't care. Merle was a dick, Daryl saved a family and drew on his own brother to do it, and he decided to fucking go back. He had people there, too; people who seemed to care about him more than his own brother did. And he couldn't help the nagging sense of responsibility toward the whole saving the world aspect.

Then Merle ripped his shirt and saw the scars on Daryl's back, and tried to claim he didn't know. Daryl called bullshit on that one, and Merle's asshole façade actually cracked for a minute. 

"I thought he'd stop with me gone," Merle said gruffly. "I should have known better. I'm sorry, little brother." 

Daryl scoffed and shrugged one shoulder. "Don't matter none. He's dead." 

"Yeah, he is," Merle agreed. "And good fuckin' riddance. Ya think them Winchester assholes can fix this shit?" 

Daryl shot Merle a glare and stalked back toward the prison. "Think they're the only ones stand a chance of it." 

"Aight then. Let's go," Merle agreed, like Daryl wasn't already fucking going. Like he'd been waiting for Merle's goddamn permission. "I like ya friend Dean. Got a mouth and temper, though." 

Daryl laughed, cause yeah, Dean did. 

 

 

The prison was under attack when they got there, with Rick out on his own trying to beat three walkers to death with his revolver, Hershel limping through a field full of zombies on one crutch while Michonne cut through them with her sword, and Dean picking them off with his pearl-handled gun and running his mouth in a steady stream of what Daryl guessed was profanity to absolutely no one. When Daryl and Merle rescued Rick and got back inside, fighting their way through the field they'd already cleared once and into the inner gate, Sammy hugged Daryl and nodded to Merle, but Dean glared. 

Daryl lifted his eyebrows and waited, and then Dean fucking shocked the hell out of him when he strode toward Daryl and Merle, socked Merle in the jaw, and kissed Daryl full on the mouth. 

"Can't fuckin' believe you, man, running off with this piece of crap!" Dean half-shouted as Daryl- and everyone else- stared at him blankly. "Thought you were over that shit!"

Merle opened his mouth, no doubt to make a comment, and Dean shot him a disgusted look. 

"Don't say a fucking word, asshole, unless you want to lose your other hand. Dixon, I'm still not hitting on you. Just glad you're back," Dean muttered, and walked off while Daryl was still trying to figure out how to fucking process what had just happened. 

Rick shuffled his feet and patted Daryl on the shoulder. "I'm glad you're back too, but I'm not gonna kiss you," he said dryly, and Daryl rolled his eyes as his face heated up and Merle let out a gust of booming laughter.


End file.
